Jim Anderson (Living Artist)
Jim Anderson is a multi-media artist based in London. After a foundation course in Cambridge, He studied English and American Literature at Oxford University, followed by printmaking at London's Central St. Martin's School of Art. In 1995 he was elected a member of The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, with whom he exhibits annually.
He works with a wide variety of different techniques, and use of found or recycled materials is paramount. Most of his prints and paintings feature handmade, recycled paper and scrap materials somewhere along the way - thus introducing into the equation elements of cookery and alchemy.
He combines social satire and surrealism, and is influenced by sources as diverse as the Bible, the Beano, and the Kama Sutra. Favourite artists - for no particular reasons - include Andrew Logan, Paul Klee, Morris Hirschfield, and Scottie Wilson. Collectors of his work include actors, musicians, MPs, and peers of the realm; as well as nurses, teachers, and the long-term unemployable.
Since 1991 he has exhibited his work in the U.K. and abroad, and has been awarded three major prizes in national exhibitions. In 1997 he founded - with Michael Sims and Christian Pattison - The Illustrated Ape magazine. In 2000 his book Handmade Prints (co-written with artist Anne Desmet) was published by A.& C. Black.
Since visiting San Francisco in 1997 he has become increasingly interested in public art; and has worked in this country and abroad on various large-scale mosaic projects - the most ambitious of which so far was 2002's series of murals at Gertrude's Garden Children's Hospital in Nairobi. Various mosaics can be seen in London, mostly in the Camden Town area.
Work by Jim Anderson can be seen at the Bankside Gallery and at Insidespace
Jim has exhibited widely and executed commissioned mosaics in public buildings in the UK and abroad.
Jim Anderson is a grand-nephew of Nance Anderson and a Trustee of the Anderson (Local Collection) Trust. It is fitting that an example of his work is included in the Trust Collection and on permanent display in Helensburgh Library:
100 “The Book Lover” (artist’s print)
(78x40cm. Purchased 2013)